


The Revolt Inside Me

by Vendetta23



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (that would be an understatement), Angst, Apostate Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, Bad Parenting, Blood Magic, Canon Divergence in some points for the sake of the story, Death Wish, Dragon Age AU, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Fear of touching, Food Issues, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, I've cried writing this and I will not rest untill you cry too, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Mages and Templars, Mages are right Templars are not I settled it down, Moral Dilemmas, Post-Dragon Age II, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Templar Armitage Hux, The Fade, Trust Kink, Yes Poe and Finn are boyfriends, prisoner kylo ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 06:07:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vendetta23/pseuds/Vendetta23
Summary: I wanted the summary to be #deep but I know this whole story is a mess to I am gonna go straight to the point:Dragon Age AU where Hux is a templar set to hunt down the dangerous apostate Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. Obviously, they fall in love. That's it and I promise a happy ending despite all the angst/inner demons those characters carry with them.The title and the inspiration for this AU came from the music Rise from Dragon Age Inquisition.





	1. The Shivering Blade

It wasn’t Hux’s first Harrowing.

They would always come in through the doors in terror, often being dragged by a templar taught to not show the slightest reaction to the apprentice’s despair. Often both templar and apprentice would be roughly the same age, too young. And Hux always stood at his father’s side, their templar armor shinning with righteousness, and watched. There were also those who came through those doors acting as if they were there by their own desire, they mocked both templar and mage authorities with looks or scruffs, but after coming to a halt before the pool of refined lyrium they would fall silent just like the ones who came in begging and screaming.

The apprentice who was brought in today was a _defiant_ one, as templars would call them. His steps were firm against the stone floor, the echoes approached bringing a young man with curly brown hair closer to the templar and mage who awaited him. He looked each one of them in the eye, and a cocky smile cut through his cheek.

“How is this going to work, you talk first, I talk first?” he said to the two men before him.

“Poe” the First Enchanter greeted him with a soothing voice, he tried his best to hide his tiredness, but Hux knew better. Hux had never been in a Harrowing without being accompanied by his father, and he knew that it was the absence of the Knight-Commander that made it possible for the First Enchanter to address his apprentice in such a manner. Brendol Hux was not a man that permitted any kind of compassion to be shown for mages, let alone apprentices. First Enchanter Eleos must think Hux was not like his father regarding that matter, for after a glance at the young templar at his side he kept speaking to Poe, the first conversation Hux heard in a Harrowing besides the desperate pleas of the apprentices. “Poe, I know how challenging that is going to be for you. I am not sure if you are ready for this, but I had no choice in the matter”

“I know you didn’t” Poe smiled and shook his head meaningfully, it seemed to Hux that he was silently pardoning Eleos for whatever would happen. The First Enchanter’s expression seemed to soften after that.

The Harrowing would dictate if the apprentice had enough self-control to become a mage, would show if, after going to the Fade, the apprentice would be able to come back. Physically, they all came back, but those who fell for the temptations offered by demons and spirits inside the Fade acted as a door to their own world through possession. The features of their faces become twisted and unrecognizable, the pitches of their voices drop and become unhuman, their skin begins to rot as if their bodies have been under the earth for weeks, their ayes sulk and become hollow, retaining but a shadow of the person they once belonged to. When the apprentice becomes an Abomination, they must be killed on the spot. His father absent, Hux was the designated killer. He held his sword with trembling hands and let the men finish what they had to say to each other.

“If only I were given more time to work on you” Eleos shook his head and took a step forward, closer to the pool of refined lyrium at the center of the salon “You would have grown out of that attitude” his laugh was heavy and quickly died away inside his throat.

“Well, then thank the Maker you didn’t, if I got stripped away of my bad attitude what more would I have left of my shinning personality? The Circle took everything else” he blinked his right eye at Hux. _So fearful he was fearless._

A templar grunted behind the three man, at the back of the salon. Four other templars were always ready to storm in in case the Abomination got out of control. Hux dismissed the complaint with a wave of his hand, if it were by his blade that that young man would die if he failed his trial, then he had the right to say whatever he wanted as his final words. Most templars were so busy defending the Chant of Light and every one of the Chantry’s dogmas they forgot about their own humanity. Hux knew he certainly had forgotten about it many times himself.

The First Enchanter to the Circle Tower of Lake Calenhad was a wise and compassionate man. That didn’t take well with the Knight-Commander Brendol Hux, and Armitage had on many occasions watched the two men argue, although the templars always had the final word on any discussion. Hux never reported Eleos sharing the secrets of the Harrowing with some apprentices he felt would have trouble surviving the trial. On the week before, Hux had caught Eleos and Poe whispering to one another besides one of the shelves of the immense library. He heard the words “daring” and “love”, and did not stick around to hear the rest.

“There is no point in postponing this. I only ask you to walk into the Fade with an open heart” Eleos turned to the lyrium pool, the blue light emanating from it flickered through his face, his beard seemed whiter, his eyes more grieving.

Poe answered nothing, his eyes fixed upon the blue liquid as well. Holding his hand, the First Enchanter lead his fingers towards the blue bright.

“Don’t be afraid”

“You will tell him, right? If anything happens. You will tell him” Poe froze his hand an inch from the pool, and both men exchanged a deep gaze.

“Yes. I will tell him” Eleos murmured, as if that was the only thing his body had strength left in it to do.

As the tips of his fingers dipped into the lyrium, Poe’s body went down, he was caught by the First Enchanter and set carefully over the cold stone floor. He looked as if he was asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Not many minutes went by before Poe started to mutter incomprehensibly. Both Hux and Eleos knew what that restlessness meant, but they spoke nothing, and waited patiently.

Hux didn’t know what was like in the Fade. He was no mage, and his whole training as a templar taught him to deny the Fade and push it far from reach of reality. His father would always tell him that the Fade was a place where those who could not act on the real world went to fulfill their dreamlike fantasies. Those who tapped into it were weak, and dangerous was their capacity to bring the Fade into this world and reshape it through it. Hux believed every word he said, and his patrolling of the Circle Tower corridors had his hand resting on the grip of his sword.

But, sometimes, Hux learned something new, specially from the children. The younglings, who felt scared and lonely after being sent or dragged from home to the Circle to never see their loved ones again, managed to be the ones who were the kindest to all around them. From this, Hux learned that if mages became dangerous, it was not because of their natural abilities but because they were failed to be shaped otherwise. And maybe the Templar Order and the Circle of Magi played their part in that.

He never shared those thoughts with his father, though, and Hux suspected Brendol would have enjoyed to inflict a Right of Annulment upon the Circle Tower of Lake Calenhad, giving his men order to kill every mage on sight. Just after receiving word of the Kirkwall Rebellion four years ago, the Knight-Commander had gone on and on about how the mage extermination would _set things right_ again in the world. After that, even though the Templars were victorious, rumors of every other Circle Tower in Thedas rebelling were heard, and now Lake Calenhad Tower was the last standing, awaiting orders from the Chantry. The Nevarran Accord annulled, Hux didn’t know whose orders they were awaiting anymore.

Poe opened his eyes, and rolled to his side, gasping. Eleos quickly fell to his knees to assist him, and upon touching the young man’s shoulder an unnatural screech echoed through the stone walls.

“Old man” the voice called, and then it laughed, and laughed.

“Oh, Maker” the First Enchanter jumped to his feet and backed away from the curled up form, the hands that clutched and scratched at the floor producing a horrible sound were no longer the hands of a young man, its claws cut through the stone leaving cursed marks behind.

“Poe…” Hux caught himself saying, hand shaking on the grip of his sword.

“Quiet, templar!” the creature shouted, twisting horribly as it was adapting to its new body “Easy-peasy, this one had his brains held feebly by a heart which adventured freely” it laughed madly and shook his head, its face was covered by the locks of curly brown hair but would bear no resemblance to the young man which was lost “Why, you should send us something more of a challenge. But no, no, you send us children who were ripped out of their parent’s arms just to fall into ours. Oh, I’ve watched this little one as he dreamed, he would visit me every night as it seemed, he wanted only to purge and be cleaned. Tell me, brave Templar and wise First Enchanter, do you know how _angry_ little children turn out to be in the hands of the Circle?” it turned his eyes to both men standing next to it, and inside the hollow sockets there burned violent flames.

“It is a rage demon that took hold of this young man’s mind!” the First Enchanter bellowed.

“You old fool, I did not make my way inside this body by force, I was _invited_ ” the creature shrieked, now a silhouette cloaked in flames rising on trembling legs, a beacon of light that made every other men cast an oppressing shadow.

“By the Chant of Light…” Hux murmured, drawing his sword, his voice cracking once the creature set its eyes upon him.

“By the Chant of Light you will put me down, valiant Templar, because you _fear_ me”

“Sir, should we…” the templars in the back of the room took a hesitant step forward, none of them truly willing to face the demon no matter how many oaths they had taken, they were also too young.

“No, it is my duty” Hux’s command was a mere whisper, his sword trembling in his shaking hands.

“A duty you are pleased to carry, it must feel good to believe that it falls on you the task of restoring order to the world”

“No, it is not like that” Hux took a step forward, the creature did not move.

“Ah? Then you were taught to be the way you are even if you don’t believe in what you are, which is no better. The world never has and will never be anything else than chaos, same goes to the Fade, even to cowards”

“By the Chant of Light, I command you demon…” Hux shouted through grinded teeth.

“You cannot command me. Slay me and a thousand will follow to feast upon the Earth. I see through you, now, Armitage Hux” Hux’s eyes widened “I would be able to convince you to let me in, if circumstances were different, if you would allow yourself to walk into the Fade. Yes, I see that you talk of the horrors of the Fade and the dangers of Magic but when you _dream_ , oh, ever since you were a little boy, when you _dream_ , you dance among the spirits” and Hux found himself face to face with the creature that held an outstretched hand to his face. He could hear the horrified pleas of the First Enchanter as if they were coming from a far away land. “This is not the first mage you slice open with your sword, but I can see that every time you do the deed you are only thinking about running that blade through _yourself_. I hear the harsh words of your father, I hear them as if they were being said to me. Do you believe I was born like this? Do you know that every demon was once a spirit like any other until we fed on feelings such as these? Feelings that came from humans such as you?” the creature was now whispering, laying a clawed hand on the armor on Hux’s chest “It is not only spirits that can become demons, for so do men when deprived of love. Do you think I wanted to become this?” Poe’s voice could be heard under the unnatural one “Or do you know that I fed on the feelings of every lost child to walk inside the Fade at night, just so I could feel human like them, and now I can’t keep their screams out of my head? So go ahead and put me down, knight, this is no way to live”

Hux ran the blade through the demon’s body, that did not but shiver. The templar did not think of The Maker while taking these two lives. He did not feel brave or strong, he thought of all those children without a home. And then he looked at his hands, covered in blood, and at the shape falling on its knees before him, ever more human than it had been at the beginning. It fell down like any lifeless body does.

 

* * *

 

 

“What happened? Where is him?!” an apprentice threw himself at Eleos’ feet just as the men reached the lower lever of the Tower, that was before he saw the blood on Hux’s armor.

“Finn, hear me, my boy” Eleos kneeled as well and took the apprentice into a tight embrace while the young man shook his head violently, eyes closed shut.

“No, no! It is them who have to listen!” he pointed an accusing finger at Hux “They took everything from me!” he was falling apart, pain was the only thing left on his face.

“Finn” Eleos murmured once again against the boy’s head “I was supposed to tell you that…” in that moment, Hux was striding away towards the barracks, leaving the howls of grief behind. He didn’t wait to hear what Eleos had promised to tell Finn if Poe met his end, which was _‘You are loved, and you will always be loved’_.

 

* * *

 

 

“You may enter”

Hux opened the heavy wooden door to his father’s quarters, and found all the windows to be closed. The man was seated by his desk, a single candle casting a yellowish light on his exhausted features. It was the first time in many years that Hux saw his father without his armor, he didn’t know he was looking so thin and feeble.

“You wanted to see me, Knight-Commander” Hux stood before him in perfect posture, not wanting to give away the sleepless night weighting down on his shoulders.

“Yes, there is a matter I wish to discuss with you” Brendol spoke as he wrote a letter, there were a few of them pilled up by his side. Uncertain times where those, and many letters were sent and received. “As you know, the Templars are no more tied to the Chantry, the Seekers of Truth which were to watch over us also went adrift, and there are mages scattered all over Ferelden, they turned their backs on the Maker and on the teachings of the Circle to become apostates and use magic to their own foul purposes”

Hux shoved away the echoes of the rage demon’s words. That was his purpose, horrible as it is, to help restore peace when the promise of unrestrained power through magic ate at the hearts of men and women.

“There is one particular apostate that I want to see taken care of” the Knight-Commander continued, never once raising his eyes to meet those of his son “He participated on the rebellion on Kirkwall, his uncle was First Enchanter in the city’s Circle and wrote to me as a last desperate plea to stop his nephew from hurting more innocent people”

Hux tightened his jaw, uncomfortable, he reminded himself of duty, even if he didn’t fully comprehend it, even if it costed more lives.

“He certainly fled the Free Marches, and the First Enchanter Luke believes him to be hidden in the Brecilian Forest as he was last seen with a mage from the Circle who was doing _blood magic_ to help them escape. She must have led the boy to where her master is”

“You certainly don’t mean…” Hux held his breath and shut his lips.

“I mean everything I say, soldier. Probably the apostate, Ben, has followed the mage Phasma to her master, Snoke”

Snoke had grown out to be the very thing from which nightmares are made since the Kirkwall Rebellion. A powerful blood mage hidden in the Brecilian Forest, gathering astray apostates to kill as many templars and seekers of truth as they can. The next thing the Knight-Commander said made Hux feel the blood leave his cheeks.

“You are to go alone. We cannot take Snoke down while we are barely able to stand on our own. The Templar Order has no men to spare, and I am too weak to go” he glanced at the wooden box next to his bed, Hux knew that was where he kept his lyrium. He also knew what the use of lyrium did to templars in the long run, that was why Hux took less than what he was supposed to.

“But, Knight-Commander, if this is blood magic we are talking about…”

“All magic is evil, soldier, blood magic is only more so, you must not fear it, given your training”

“But, _father_ …” Brendol looked at Hux for the first time in their meeting. A long silence ensued.

“I am not your father, soldier, I am your Knigh-Commander and you will do as I say. Or did you not just kill a rage demon last night? You leave at dawn. This conversation is over”

 

* * *

 

 

The chilly air cut through Hux’s face when he did what no mage inside the Circle could do, step out of the door to leave. His sack was heavy for what would be a month-long journey to the Brecilian Forest, and the Sun was coming up on the east side of Lake Calenhad. Hux was stopped before he got to the bridge.

“I heard what the demon said to you” Eleos’ voice came from behind Hux, who was hesitant to turn around “I do not judge, it only shows how much of your heart the Templar Order could not break”

“I do not need a heart, First Enchanter, I only need my sword”

“And I understand why you have to tell yourself that” Eleos smiled feebly. He was accompanied by another mage who Hux recognized from the moment he went down the stairs after the Harrowing.

“So, they made him undergo the Rite of Tranquility” Hux spoke as if Finn was not there. It would be a lie to say that he were.

“Yes, they made him a Tranquil” Eleos had tears on the corners of his eyes as he looked to the brand of the Chantry forever carved on Finn’s forehead.

“Was this his choice?” Hux would understand, some mages preferred to have all emotions taken away from them when they could not bear life under the Circle’s laws, and especially after they had lost a loved one.

“No, it wasn’t. If you knew Finn you would know he would never have agreed to that. But they thought he was too dangerous, after what happened to Poe, and cut all his ties to the Fade”

“I am sorry”

“I know you are, but words will not bring him back. Now he cannot feel the love Poe left him as his dying wish. But I suppose that is better than to have never known love” Eleos glanced at Hux “I keep him close now, so I can protect him in the way I could not protect Poe”

“I wish I could do something”

“And I wish that the day when you finally do something you realize that it is not only because we can’t keep living like this, but also because you can’t. May The Maker guide you, Armitage Hux”

And Hux was left alone to cross the bridge before him.


	2. The Twisting Staff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised. 
> 
> And please note that I've updated the tags, so check if you are still okay to keep reading the story!

Hux’s journey across Ferelden was done avoiding all main roads and cities. He knew both mages and templars traveled in groups for safety, and he didn’t want to be spotted by neither of them. He knew he would have to prove to the templars he wasn’t a runaway mage, which would be hard since he wasn’t wearing his armor for safety reasons, and that he would have to prove to mages he was not a templar. But the mages would feel the disturbance in the Fade if they were to approach him, even if Hux didn’t try anything to counter their spells, he knew they would feel that the reality around him would be harder to shape, resistant to change through magic. They could also go through his sack and find out the wooden box in which he kept his doses of lyrium in tiny glass vials, and they would know he needed the lyrium to block magic efficiently, like all the templars did. So Hux preferred to stick to muddy and crooked roads and cities that were only populated enough to have a minuscule inn. Most of they weren’t even on his maps, and the only problems he faced were drunk men and women wanting to brawl.

Hux had much time on his hands to think, but he chose not to. Instead of considering carefully the words of the demon he killed during the Harrowing, he would repeat to himself the teachings his father the Knight-Commander had passed on to him through his whole life. He was both scared and proud to have been sent on this mission, and on many occasions, he fantasized about bringing Snoke’s head to his father and how of proud he would be of his son. Maybe he would even show it through a quick smile or a shake of his head and Hux would know for the first time in his life that he had pleased his father. But some other part of him questioned how much his father truly cared about him by sending him, alone, to face such a dangerous task. Even if he were to hunt down only one young apostate, chances were high that he would encounter Snoke or more of his followers on the way. His father either thought he was prepared to rise to the challenge or didn’t care enough to be bothered by the result of the encounter. No, his father would at least care that his only heir survived to replace him. So, then, his father thought him to be a coward who would flee at the sight of the so-called Blood Emperor. To think that was disheartening, and to think that Hux would throw himself, sword in hand, at Snoke only to prove he was someone to own his father was even more tragic. _Even if I die in battle_ , Hux thought to himself, _he would know I was brave_. _Right?_

So Hux endlessly repeated the things he had been taught to himself, and what had been painted in shades of grey by the rage demon’s words was once again black and white. And when Hux laid down to sleep in the filthy rags of forgotten inns, he hoped he would not remember being transported to the Fade while he dreamt in the next morning. He wasn’t a child anymore, an innocent soul that listened to the stories of the spirits trapped in the Fade while imagining what would be like to shape reality in whatever forms he desired. He was a Templar, and his duty was to carve reality in stone and walk down the path that was already traced for him. He wasn’t sure anymore which were the Maker’s words and which ones were his father’s, but he had a purpose and he thought he was at peace with it.

Hux didn’t know much about the apostate he was supposed to hunt down. He didn’t know he had heard of him before, under a different name. He believed him to be simply Ben, another runaway mage that brought down the Circle Tower of Kirkwall during the Mage Rebellion. But what his father hadn’t told him was that the boy went by another name after that, Luke asked as a personal favor in his letter that the Knight-Commander didn’t disclose that his nephew was, in fact, Kylo Ren, the Templar Killer.

Hux was, again, set to meet a fate he barely knew while also not knowing the reason why he walked towards it. And so it goes.

By the end of the month, Hux had reached the borders of the Brecilian Forest. His cape was no longer necessary to proceed with the journey since the temperature was hot and suffocating even during the night under the infinity of leaves of ancient trees. He knew that the elves of the Dalish clans were most likely to be watching his every step, that was their forest and it had belonged to them since times immemorial, but they would not intervene, especially in times of war. Hux felt exposed walking through the dense vegetation wearing only light cloth, and his hand was on the grip of his sword at all times. He began to look for signals such as remains of campfires and footprints, trying to figure out where he was most likely to find the group of apostates. He also tried to sense disruptions in the Fade, places in which reality had been tempered with. He was hunting, and he had been taught he had the Maker’s blessing to do it.

It wasn’t until the third day of searching that he realized something was wrong. In the morning, he believed that it was due to being exposed to the Forest. Many believe that its tragic history, involving the slaughter of so many during the wars between elves and Tevinter mages, had produced a tear in the veil of the Fade. Many went insane just from stepping inside those woods, and Hux felt so weak and powerless against the Fade that he took the full daily dosage of lyrium to keep his performance from falling. It didn’t work, and as the day went on he felt like he wasn’t able to distinguish North from South, and that he was walking in circles. He felt that, somehow, he had been walking in circles for years. He checked his wooden box and found more empty vials than had been there in the morning. Did he take all that lyrium? He had kept his dosage lower than the rest of the templars until then. Inside the ranks, he had seen soldiers and generals fall to the addiction and watched as others succumbed to what the shiny blue liquid did to their bodies after decades of use. His father was a mere ghost last time he saw him. _And, Maker be blessed, did he drink all that lyrium?_

The dampness weighted down on him, had him struggling for air every few steps, fold his sleeves up to his elbows, empty his canteen of water. He looked over his shoulders and saw shadows hiding behind the trees, he ran a couple of times to the point where he fell on his knees just to find out there was nothing really chasing him. He then did what he hadn’t done in many years, rested his forehead on his hands and prayed to the Maker.

A fumble of leaves made him look up. A little boy was standing a few feet from him, looking straight at his crumbled figure. His hair was just like Hux’s, a fiery red borrowed from autumn’s trees.

“Hello” Hux mumbled, breathless, astonished to see there was someone else there with him. He tried to look as calm as he could not to scare away the child “Are you lost?”. The kid didn’t seem affected by the forest at all, in fact he didn’t seem to be affected by anything around him. He looked at Hux with empty eyes, as if he could see right through him. Hux tried to rise to his feet but the child took a step back and Hux kneeled on the ground again.

“Is he lost?” a voice spoke, carried by the wind.

“Who is there?” Hux looked around, startled, and grabbed the grip of his sword. Then, he saw the little boy looking at him, eyes wide in terror, and he let go of the weapon.

“Is that the question you should be asking?” the voice whispered again, and a specter appeared right behind the boy, hands resting on his shoulders. Hux didn’t have time to react to the apparition, he watched bewildered as the boy grabbed the specter’s hand and danced around it, smiling. Hux had seen this before. In a dream.

“You remember?” the spirit said, it was shaped like a human but Hux couldn’t make out its face as it seemed to be forever changing.

“You were spilled into this world from the Fade, I negate you” he tried to raise his hand to direct his abilities at the apparition, but he found out, horrified, that he couldn’t move. He kept on speaking “I negate you and I bring reality to where it should be, once more” he closed his eyes, concentrating. But nothing changed, and the little boy kept dancing around the spirit.

“You negate me, or you negate _you_?” the spirit spoke, and Hux glanced at his sack by his side, thinking about the lyrium he had left. When he looked back at the boy, he had let go of the hand of the spirit and was now dancing around others who were coming from all around Hux. The child started to sing.

_‘Look through the tear and you’re not alone_

_Look through the tear and you’ll find a home’_

The spirits began to draw closer, and Hux felt all his strength leave his body. All those ever-changing faces, Hux knew each one of them, he would visit them at night and he would tell them about all the things he had imagined during the day, and all those beautiful things would materialize before his very eyes. In the Fade, he built castles in which the spirits would live and made up loving families which the spirits also never had. In turn, they would tell him stories about many more like him, who walked into the Fade in dreams to live lives they would never have. The spirits felt more human each time they learned about something new, and Hux let his head rest on their laps after each day of rough training.

_‘I may be lost, and flesh and bone,_

_But fate is mine to set in stone”_

“Make him stop” Hux tried to make his voice sound as threatening and loud as he could, but, by the second time, it came out cracked and hoarse “Please, make him stop”. And he heard his father’s voice booming out of the trees, like it was everywhere and it was everything. He couldn’t make out the words, but he knew he was angry, he was screaming, and the leaves of the trees trembled and fell just like Hux was trembling in fear and crumbling down under the weight of his own body. He tried as hard as he could to put his hands over his ears, but they wouldn’t move, and he was paralyzed once more, like he used to be as a child, under the shadow of the Knight-Commander towering over him. He glanced once more at his sack, he needed the wooden box.

“Are you lyrium or are you man?” the spirit drew closer. Hux thought it was going to hurt him, so he shut his eyes and waited. And waited. The little boy was humming now, still the same song. Hesitantly, Hux opened his eyes again and found the spirit face to face with him, also on its knees so it could look Hux in the eyes. “Did we ever hurt you?”

“Why are you immobilizing me?” Hux spat angrily.

“Am I?” the spirit retorted. And Brendol’s voice was gone. And Hux could move again. He went for his sack as fast as he could, and the spirit didn’t try to stop him while he fumbled around his stuff until he found the box. All the vials were empty, not a drop of the blue liquid left behind.

“It was here, it was here…” he said.

“Was it?”

“I must have drunk it. Maker, I must have drunk it”

“Did you?”

“Why can’t I reshape things back to the way they were?” anxiety started to grip at his throat.

“Do you want to?” the spirit whispered.

“Why do you keep asking questions like I know the answers?!” Hux snapped “You are a mistake, all of you are” he shouted at the rest of the spirits, who kept dancing “A childhood weakness, I should have never have interacted with the Fade, if I had followed my father’s orders…”

“If you had followed your father’s orders…?”

“I would have never desired anything I couldn’t have!” he got to his feet “I would have never filled my head with senseless dreams! I can’t have it, any of it!” he gestured absent-mindedly towards something that wasn’t there. The spirit tilted its head to the side and also rose to its feet.

“What would that be?”. Hux stared at it in disbelief.

“Go away. Just go away…” he said with tears streaming down his face.

He blinked, and everything was gone, the spirit, the boy, the melody in the wind. He was alone, so he allowed himself to take a deep breath before throwing his sack over his shoulder again and kicking the empty wooden box on the floor. The vials spread out on the ground and he step on them on his way out to find a stream of water. He realized, for the first time, that night had dawned and he was surrounded by darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

It happened while he was filling up his canteen in a thin stream of running water coming out of the rocks of the foot of a mountain far away. He felt a sharp pain to his chest, a violent disturbance in the Fade, and suddenly everything was illuminated by a pale green light coming from above. Hux turned around and saw the Breach shinning in the sky. A tear on his world, a bleeding cut among the clouds. He had never seen one so massive, it must be possible to see it from all across Ferelden, had the Grey Wardens felt it? Hux stood transfixed, looking up and shaking from head to toe. It had to be a _Blight_ , and that meant the world was to end. Unless, of course, they stopped it. But what shocked Hux the most was that he didn’t feel the need to drop everything and return to his father to help the Templar Order fight back the darkspawn that would pour out of the Breach like it had done since times immemorial, since the first Blight. He didn’t want to save the world, he realized. What he desired was to lay down on the ground and wait for Death to take him, as it would take everyone else.

That’s when Hux heard the snap of a twig. He turned around, drawing his sword, and saw a man coming out from behind a tree. From the darkness, the man stepped under the green bright and revealed himself while looking curiously at Hux. He was tall, even a bit taller than Hux, and had very distinctive facial features, a long stream of black hair went along with his ragged black cloak. Hux immediately tried to measure his strength in case he wanted to hurt him and was relieved to see that the man wasn’t particularly strong, not like a templar with years of training. But Hux’s hear sank when he understood why that was, the man didn’t need strength, he carried a staff at his back.  

“I didn’t know I wasn’t the only one wondering around this lovely place” Hux tried to look less tense, his sword was still drawn but he lowered it. He would try to pass as a mere traveler, he wasn’t fit to fight now, he didn’t know what the forest had done to him that made him so weak.

“This _our_ forest. You are our guest” the man simply stated, coming to a halt a few feet away from Hux.

“Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything” Hux shifted his weight uncomfortably, he hoped the apostate was alone.

“Are you trying to get to the Korcari Wilds?” the man was somber and didn’t seem unsettled by the immense Breach in the sky.

“Yes, I am crossing the forest to get to there” Hux had been heading south all those days, trying to reach the heart of the forest. A couple more weeks and he would be crossing the Korcari Wilds and going straight into uncharted territory.

“A strange destination. In times like these most people are heading home, and not away from it” he glanced at the Breach for a brief moment before setting his eyes on Hux once more. His posture didn’t indicate he was going to attack, and he seemed interested in what Hux had to say.

“Well, I fathom most people would want to get as far from here was possible, now”

“People do strange things when the end is coming” the man simply said “I am looking for a templar that entered our forest. Have you by any chance encountered him?” Hux felt his heart stop beating inside his chest, but made his best effort as to not give away anything.

“No, I haven’t”

“I sensed him in the moment he set foot on these grounds” he took one slow step forward, Hux pointed his sword at him, watching carefully “But I can’t sense him anymore, I suppose it is because the forest weakened him, the Fade overpowered all his ability to deny it” he blinked and went silent for a moment “But I heard you talking to beings that I couldn’t see, because that part of the Fade belongs to you, and then I saw you ditch your box of lyrium”

“It wasn’t lyrium, I am a chemist and I carry my vials wherever I go”

“But even refined lyrium leaves a great impression behind in the Fade” he looked almost as if he was sorry for what he was going to say next “You know who I am” his hand grabbed his staff and pointed it at Hux. It was pointy and lopsided, made from a dark metal, and at its end three points converged into one, making it look like a clawed hand that held within a blood-red core. It used fire to deal elemental damage.

“I don’t” Hux said truthfully, there was no point in lying anymore.

“Your commander, you will bring me to him” he stared intensely into Hux’s eyes.

“I came alone”

“So leave” he looked tired and hurt. Hux was wondering why he didn’t attack him yet.

“I will not leave until I finished my task” the words came out before Hux could stop them. He was about to leave everything behind, his mission, his father, the world, all to be swallowed by the Blight. But then this apostate appeared, and Hux was now angrier than he had every been. Before him was something he was taught to hate, and Hux was ready to let himself be consumed by rage. He remembered his training, he remembered it as the only certain thing in his life, dreadful, but certain, and he would spill blood to make things feel right again.

“What is your task? Or better, _who_?” the man retorted twisting his lips in disgust.

“An apostate named Ben” Hux had felt it when the man announced himself, he felt like fate was before him, waiting for him to grab it by the throat. The young man fell silent, hiding his eyes under his dark hair.

“I haven’t heard this name in many years. Who sent you? My parents?”

“Your uncle”. The man shivered and looked at Hux meaningfully.

“It seems that we can’t deny the truth that is our family” he said, looking down before drawing his staff closer to his face, the red core beginning to sparkle. Hux held up his sword with such strength on the grip that is felt like his father’s hand was on top of his own, guiding it.

“You’re so right” Hux said before launching himself forward, aiming the point of his sword at the other man’s hand to disarm him. But, in the next moment, Hux was dodging a fireball that hit the trunk of a tree that had been right behind him. When he looked at his opponent, for the first time he saw a rage to match his own. He quickly jumped to the other man’s side and made his blade slash the air so close to him that it cut his black robes, the other blow was parried by the staff but made the mage stumble backwards. Putting some space in between them, the apostate spun around on his feet and pointed his staff at Hux, firing a ball of flame. Hux flung his hand up and stopped it midair, looking straight into the crackling light. The apostate gasped, but before he could attack again, the fire on his staff was out and Hux was concentrating on denying all magic around them. The mage tried to reach out to the Fade, but found its doors closed shut. His eyes widened and the ball of flame in between them turned into smoke. Hux advanced, the other man lost its footing and fell backwards on the earth, the templar swung at his staff, held protectively in front of the apostate, it flew and fell a couple feet from them. Hux now had his blade at the apostate’s neck, whose face was soft and fearful, and Hux saw that those eyes belonged to someone as young as him. _Too young_.  

The mage growled and twist his hands on his lap, and echoes began to flow from everywhere around them. He pushed back, crumbling down the reality the templar was affirming, and spirits circled them, eager to watch, eager to feel the violence and despair that so much drew them to humans. Hux felt he was losing control, he took a step back while the other man came back up on his shaking feet. The templar was being drained of all will to keep fighting, all the will to keep living. The apostate quickly clasped his hands together and did something Hux never learned was possible, produced fire with his fingertips and a raging and unstable energy began to take form inside his palms. The apostate directed the stream of fire towards Hux, aiming for his sword arm. He missed by centimeters but Hux felt his cloth and skin burning just above his elbow. Twisting his arms, the apostate produced more flames that swirled everywhere, despair making them uncontrollable. The tall dark figure was surrounded by fiery tongues that lit up the night, and he was screaming as if he himself was being ignited. Some spirits began to draw in, Hux could have sworn his sword had been a lot lighter to carry, he fell to his feet, trembling. The apostate towered over him and Hux could hear the little boy humming once more. The ground seemed to be made of ashes, and the trees around them were twisted into unnatural forms. He had been drawn into the Fade. The apostate stopped before him, still cloaked in flames, and seemed to be listening to something that Hux couldn’t hear.

“Don’t be afraid” his voice was heavy but calm and calculating “I feel it too”

“Do you hear him?” Hux closed his eyes, trying to find peace at what he though were his final moments. He tried to think of home, but found none to think of.

“I hear him. But I don’t think you do” the apostate fell to his knees before Hux, who opened his eyes and stared in disbelief. Hux couldn’t know who the mage was talking about, he couldn’t hear the voices on his head that carried on with him even outside the Fade. Snoke’s commands to destroy, to lash out at everything and everyone, were the mage’s own burden. The apostate shook his head, concentrating on the young templar’s face. The commands grew louder, but his hands kept steady.

“I don’t want to be another of the corpses left to rot on war battlefields” Hux didn’t know why he was saying that to an apostate, he didn’t know why he believed he would care to give him a proper burial, to burn his remains so they couldn’t be brought back to life by the hands of necromancers, another soldier in an army of undead. The apostate blinked, he had stood before many templars under the same conditions before. They either cried or spat on him, but their ayes always mirrored the same image, and the mage didn’t want to see himself reflected on them anymore. A twist of his fingers and more blood would be on his hands.

“Then you will head home” and the flames were extinguished. The tear to the Fade was closed, and both men found themselves to be illuminated by the cold rays of the morning Sun.

As soon as Hux regained his strength he went for his sword, pointing the blade towards the apostate’s heart. The mage didn’t move.

“Do you know who I am?” he simply asked, looking at Hux from behind his tangled stream of hair.

“You are Ben, an apostate who took part on Kirkwall’s Rebellion”

“And you’re to take me prisoner to my uncle?” he took a deep controlled breath.

“I…” Hux was sure that his order was to kill him on sight.

“Then do it” the apostate took one slow step so that the tip of the sword met the black robes that covered his chest. Hux stood bewildered. This wasn’t supposed to be easy, he wasn’t supposed to hesitate to kill a mage that strayed from the Chantry’s path.

“I don’t understand” Hux whispered before raising his voice “You are you _not fighting me_?”

“I don’t want to”

“I am a templar”

“Then why are you not killing me?”

“I…”

“Do you know who I am?”

“I already answered that question” Hux said impatiently.

“I don’t go by that name anymore. I am Kylo Ren, the Templar Killer”

Hux’s heart stopped dead on his chest. He had heard of Kylo Ren, the Blood Mage, who slaughtered as many templars as he could on his way out of Kirkwall, who joined Snoke to carry on the deed across Ferelden. Kylo Ren was supposed to be a ruthless killer, and yet Hux saw on him the same eyes of scared Circle apprentices. Kylo knew any templar would rejoice on the chance of putting him down, and yet he saw on Hux eyes that were no different than those of scared children who were sent out to fight a senseless war. Kylo didn’t know if he was relieved or angry that Hux wouldn’t do the deed.

“I am taking you back to the Circle” Hux said, stumbling through his words.

“That I cannot allow”

“Then you’ll have to kill me” Hux looked straight into Kylo’s eyes, defiant. He had never seen such sad eyes on a person before.

“That I will not do” Kylo said truthfully. He took nor pride nor joy in killing, and every life that met its end by his hands was the result of either despair or rage. He was tired of fighting, and only wanted the voice in his head to go silent. They stood there for a long time before Hux finally opened his mouth.

“You are coming with me” he took a step back and reached for his sack on the ground, keeping his sword pointed at Kylo at all times, grabbing the chains carved with the sigil of the Chantry, embedded with an anti-magical ward put there by mages of the Circle to imprison their own kind. Hux didn’t know why he brought those chains with him, his task was simply to find the apostate and put him down.

“If you bring me to my uncle, he will kill me” Kylo said, thinking to himself ‘ _not if I kill him first_ ’. Hux was certain he felt fear on the other man’s voice and felt terrible for what he had to answer.

“You will be judged first by the Circle” and Hux knew he would most certainly be sentenced to death.

“I see” he said simply “You won’t need those” he gestured with his head to the chains on Hux’s hand “I won’t fight you”

“I won’t take an apostate’s word for it” he drew closer and clumsily tried to close the handcuffs around Kylo’s wrists while pointing the sword to his chest. The apostate’s heart sank. It was only fair, he supposed, that after everything he had done, no one would trust him with his hands. That was a part he was almost eager to play, he felt that he deserved it, being chained like a wild animal, cut off from the Fade by the anti-magical ward when the cuffs were locked. But when he saw the young templar talking to ghosts he could not see earlier, he thought he would understand what was like being him, he thought both could relate, bound by fear. He thought the young man would believe him when he said he wasn’t going to harm him, nobody else did before, and he was raised being called a monster and taught that his magical abilities were evil. When he was young, he could make flowers blossom, and now he had become what everyone had believed him to be, something monstrous himself. He caught himself paying attention to Hux’s hands while they were cuffing him. Something else he couldn’t have, he wasn’t taught to believe he could.

“Are they too tight?” he said before he could stop himself, and Kylo took a quick glance at him before looking at the ground again, ashamed.

“No”

“Good” Hux shook his head and put down his sword “We should rest for a while” he glanced at his burned arm, it wasn’t too bad, and it didn’t hurt like he thought it would. Kylo hid behind his locks of hair once he saw he had hurt the other man. Hux caught him staring “It will be fine, I have some herbs in my sack”. Hux didn’t know why the apostate seemed to care if he was hurt, and he didn’t know why he was trying to comfort him. He caught himself staring at the other man for too long.

“I could heal you” Kylo said.

“You are no healer” Hux retorted, and Kylo supposed that was true, his hands were only trained to destroy.

“I am a blood mage”

“Blood magic is evil, it can only take lives”

“That’s what they teach you in your training?”

“That is the truth. We’re heading north, I saw a cave not far from here. I’ll walk behind you” Hux put his sword on his belt once more. Kylo turned north and Hux followed.

“Are you going to fight the darkspawn? Stop the Blight?” Kylo asked while they walked.

“And save the world? I don’t think it’s much worth saving” Kylo suppressed a chuckle.

 

* * *

 

 

After a couple of hours of silent walking, Hux signaled to a hidden cave under the roots of a giant tree.

“We’ll settle here for today, tomorrow we can head back to Lake Calenhad”

“I fathom that is the only Circle that still stands”

“Yes, it is” both men glanced at the Breach in the sky before heading inside the cave, wavering over their heads and threatening to swallow the world. Kylo hurled up over some dark corner of the cave while Hux spread oil on top of a flat stone and banged two rocks together several times to create a spark. The tiny fire was enough to light up all the interior of the cave, and with that amount of oil, it would burn for at least a day. Hux took his belt out and laid it down on the floor by his side, he then proceeded to take some herbs from his sack. When he realized he couldn’t rub the remedy on his burned arm without taking off his shirt, he shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Kylo over the corner. But the apostate didn’t even seem to be paying attention to Hux, he kept staring at the stone wall by his side, watching the shadows cast by the fire, his bound hands resting on his lap. Hux shook his head and took his shirt off, starting to rub the herbs mixed with a bit of water on his wound. It stung and felt hot under his touch. Kylo glanced at him a couple of times, wondering if he should apologize. Surprisingly, he wasn’t the first to start talking.

“What were you saying about blood magic? I won’t let you do it on me, but you said it could be used for healing” Hux said while tying a dirty rag over his burn.

“Just like all branches of magic, blood magic can be used for good things and bad things” Hux was surprised to know the apostate seemed to distinguish good from evil “I can take the life out of my opponents, or I can take my own and direct it towards helping someone else getting back their own vital strength”

“Is this why many blood mages die in battle? Because they took too much out of themselves?”

“Yes, I suppose that if they are using their own blood to brings corpses back to life, they can overdo it” Kylo shrugged. He once brought someone back to life, it was a fellow mage that had perished during a confrontation with a group of templars in the forest. But what he brought back wasn’t the person he once knew, and he hated himself for having to slay her for the second time. Snoke promised he could raise a whole army if he wanted to, but Kylo never did it again.

“I think there will be a lot of corpses walking the earth now, with the Blight” Hux was again fully dressed, sat down by the fire.

“The darkspawn devastated Ferelden the last time it happened, I heard” Hux was too young to remember, too protected by the walls of the barracks to hear outside news, but he remembers seeing more templars leave the castle than coming back “But what _people_ make during the Blights, there’s nothing like it”. Kylo was also too young to remember the last Blight. Shut away in the Circle Tower, he didn’t know what was happening out there, everything he knew was by eavesdropping on the conversations of priests and templars.

“Like becoming blood mages?” Hux glanced at Kylo.

“Like killing every mage that wouldn’t join the fight, even after mistreating them their entire lives”

“Templars do not kill mages unless it is absolutely necessary to”

“Tell me, when was the last time it was _absolutely_ necessary?” Kylo spat, resting his head on the stone wall “I was in Kirkwall during the Right of Annulment, you weren’t, you just know what you’ve been told”

“Oh? Enlighten me, then, what _truly_ happened at Kirkwall?” Hux scoffed.

“I wish I knew, I woke up and everything was on fire and my uncle was next to my bed, pointing his staff at me” Kylo tightened his jaw, Hux went silent for a moment.

“Isn’t your uncle a mage?”

“Yes, one of the ones who believe mages should be put on a leash, bowing to the Chantry” Kylo adjusted his position and his chains made a tingling noise “That is no way to live”. Hux remembered the rage demon’s final words, ‘ _So go ahead and put me down, knight, this is no way to live_ ’.

“If magic wasn’t controlled, Ferelden would become Tevinter” Hux was mostly talking to himself, trying to remember all the reasons magic should be feared, reasons that were recited to him every day during his training.

“Hunger for power built Tevinter, and I assure you that it can be found inside every man and woman’s heart, mage or non-mage”

“But only powerful mages could have gone to the Golden City and tainted everything the Maker did, everything that was good, just because they wanted to sit at the throne”

“You believe those stories?” Kylo made a face.

“Yes, I do. Magic caused the ruin of the Golden City, and now its heart is tar black, and all the Tevinter magisters that tainted it and were banished by the Maker created the Archdemons, the bringers of death through the Blights” Hux had tried to keep his voice down, but those weren’t just stories that you chose to believe in or not, those were truths that were taught in the Chant of Light “If they weren’t given so much power, they would never have reached the gates of Heaven”

“So you hate that we have a kind of power you don’t” Hux would be lying if he said that weren’t true.

“It is not _yours_ to have”

“Then why did the Maker give it to us?” Kylo didn’t believe he had something special inside him. To him, magic was nothing more than a curse, and he didn’t believe in the Maker also. But the templar was already on his feet, walking in circles, trying to contain his anger at the discussion, and Kylo was having fun poking him in such a manner.

“The Maker didn’t give anything to you, you _stole_ it”

“How could I have stolen something I spent my whole life trying to get rid of?” Kylo snapped, and Hux froze in place. Kylo looked at him, at the way his red hair fell on his eyes, and hoped more than anything that he could understand.

“It’s time to eat something” Hux decided to stop the conversation, turning to his sack to search for the roots and dry meat he brought with him. Kylo went rigid against the cave wall.

“I’m not hungry”

“Look, let’s face it, we already lost the day, so we better catch up tomorrow and you have to save your strength until then. We can’t take too long to leave the forest, I don’t have much more food left”

“I am fine” Kylo curled up, embracing his knees with his arms.

“Maker give me strength…” Hux said under his breath as he separated two portions of the least disgusting-looking roots he could find. After a moment, he walked over to the apostate, and cautiously offered some of the food wrapped in a cloth. Kylo didn’t even seem to acknowledge him. “You are not making this any easier”

“Don’t treat me like a child” Kylo turned violently and locked vicious eyes on Hux. The templar took a step back and reached instinctively for the sword that was not with him, but beside his belt on the floor. Kylo noticed the movement the other man’s hand made and sank into his position, looking away “I am not a child anymore”

 

* * *

 

 

To Kylo, it seemed like the world was deprived of color. Being cut off from the Fade by the handcuffs didn’t make him feel like he was finally normal, but took away everything that made life bearable. He knew that the anti-magic ward wouldn’t even let him dream. He wondered if the templar eating silently a few paces from him remembers what he dreams about, or if he was so ashamed of walking into the Fade every night that he chose to bury it. At least Snoke’s voice was gone, the Blood Emperor wouldn’t even know where he was. But Kylo knew that, if he ran, he would be hunted down by Snoke and templars alike throughout his entire life. If he let himself be brought before the Circle, a quick death would at least be certain. But he wasn’t thinking about those two possibilities, there was also a third one, an impossible one and Kylo knew it. But he caught himself thinking, over and over again, _what if I could make him see_ …

Meanwhile, Hux had finished his roots and meat and was turned to Kylo, eyes glued to the ground on which he was sitting. He didn’t know what he was doing, but his father’s voice inside his head had finally stopped. He glanced at Kylo and began to despair, he didn’t want to let him go for all the blood he would spill, and he didn’t to spill any more blood himself by taking him back to Lake Calenhad or to his uncle. Night had fallen, and he was an adult who was scared of the dark outside of the cave’s entrance, desiring to sit by the fire forever. He kept glancing at Kylo, a ridiculous idea popping on his head over and over again, _what if I could get closer to him_.

“My family is descendant from a Tevinter magister” Kylo spoke softly, not wanting to startle Hux who seemed to be deep in thought. Hux blinked, as if he didn’t believe they were talking again.

“A slaver?”

“More than that, I am a direct descendant of Anakin”

“You can’t be serious”

“When Snoke took me in, he did so because of what he called the ‘ _potential of my bloodline_ ’”

“You asked me if I believed in those stories but you’re telling me you are the descendant of one of the magisters that tainted the Golden City”

“I asked you if you believed magic was to be blamed”

“You are telling me you are of the same blood of those who almost brought the world to an end many times” Hux looked at Kylo, horrified.

“You just said that you didn’t think the world was worth saving, why are you so worried about who brought the Blights now?”

“Do you want it to _consume_ the world?”

“I used to, yes. I thought it would purify it. I wanted to reach the Golden City and sit on the Golden Throne, just like Anakin. But now…” he slowly turned to Hux, afraid the other man would try and grab his sword once again, but he just stood there, transfixed while Kylo looked straight into his eyes “Now I am not so sure” and the apostate rested once more against the stone wall.

Hux leaned down on the other side of the cave to where Kylo was, with his sword by his side. He didn’t feel comfortable closing his eyes around the apostate and realized he didn’t think it through when he decided to bring Kylo with him. He knew, although it was hard to believe, that Kylo had decided to spare his life, and that he surrendered willingly. But mages were liars and deceivers, they were so used to alter reality that they began to do so using their own words, no need for magic. Kylo had already proved that he could destroy Hux, weak as he was inside that forest, and he was waiting for the apostate to change his mind about being a prisoner. He must have a trick up his sleeve, he wouldn’t have come if he didn’t have a way to escape, it didn’t make sense. Hux knew, as do most of the templars, very little about blood magic, and he didn’t know if the ward would be able to hold such power back.

Kylo saw Hux lean down on the opposite side to him, sword at his side. The mage began to watch the flames that still burned on top of the oil on the center of the small cave. He could hear the little noises outside, animals jumping around and birds flapping its wings. He wasn’t afraid of the forest at night, and sometimes he would take long walks completely hidden by shadows. He didn’t want to close his eyes either, he couldn’t guess what the templar was thinking, and wondered if he, like his uncle, would simply decide in the middle of the night he wasn’t worth the risk. If the templar decided to physically attack him, there was nothing Kylo could do, the ward was too strong to be broken, probably made by tranquils.

“You didn’t tell me your name” Kylo spoke softly.

“Hux, actually Armitage” Hux said, both men were watching the flames dance.

“Which one do you prefer?” Hux was inclined to say ‘ _why do you care_?’, but refrained from doing so.

“Hux is fine. No one calls me Armitage”

“Right” Kylo tried to lay down on his side but he couldn’t put his arm under his head, so he just laid on his back and stared at the stone ceiling, irregular and covered in cobwebs. Hux watched him, telling himself he was to keep eyes on the apostate at all times, but he wasn’t worrying about any particular thing, but watching how his long black hair moved while the man shifted his position. “I hate spiders” Kylo said and Hux arched an eyebrow.

“Why did you say that do me?”

“Why not?” and Kylo was hoping Hux would say something back.

“I hate cockroaches” Hux finally said after a moment, not because he felt that he had to say something, but because he wanted to. There wasn’t someone he could talk to in the barracks, and the apprentices of the Circle either were too scared of him or despised him.

“Why? I think they are smart”

“Well, that’s certainly not something I thought I would hear of a cockroach”

“They do anything to survive” Kylo also didn’t have someone to talk to his whole life. In the Circle, the children and the teachers thought him a freak because of how fast he could learn and how much magic he could display. He had Phasma for a while, after escaping Kirkwall, but she was too practical and had no time for small talk.

“And spiders are intelligent, they capture their prey in a very interesting way”

“I think they are cynical” Kylo gave it a shrug, like that was a very natural thing to say. Both men suppressed a laugh at that absurdity, but nothing was hidden for they could hear the change in each other’s breathing pattern.

“Why are you going on about insects?”

“Because it looks like none if us is closing his eyes tonight…” there was something almost like sorrow on Kylo’s voice.

“Yes, it looks like it” Hux tried not to show how much he didn’t want that to be true.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said on chapter 1, reviews really keep me motivated so feel free to leave one if you wish!  
> (and please let me know if you found the Kurt Vonnegut's reference)


	3. The Beating Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Author's vent, tw: fascism)  
> I took much longer than I expected to complete this chapter, and this is due to many reasons. I thank very much for the patience of those who still stick around. Those who sent messages made me very happy, I had your kind words in my mind every time I struggled for motivation to write. Those who didn’t sent me messages, your presence here is more than enough and I held you in my thoughts as well. As I said, that was due to many reasons, one of them I’ll share here. And now I get to what I intend to say with this little introduction:  
> I am Brazilian. By the end of this month, we will have the second turn of our elections for president. One of the two candidates is a fascist in the purest sense of the term. His statements against minorities can be easily found anywhere on the web. We are terrified. And he may win. Actually, all the odds lean towards him, as he convinced a large share of the population that was left desperate by the economic situation to vote for extreme measures, often tied to his twisted interpretation of religion. Even if he doesn’t end up elected by vote, he threatened to take power by force, through the army. He is a real threat to our delicate democracy, which we earned with much spilled blood. We are still looking for those of us who are missing, we are still finding the bones of those who were tortured and killed during out last dictatorship. It’s been only 30 years. 
> 
> This is not for you to feel sorry or anything, it is the opposite effect of fear or disheartenment that I want to achieve. This terror I’m filled with made my writing linger, half-dead, inside me, and only now I could start to let it out once more. Because I am a firm believer in the power of stories, I believe they can help us think when we are being lied to, help us find humanity in ourselves and others when times are daring, and entertain us when we need not awareness but oblivion. Stories change us and change gives spark to hope. I am sure none of my stories would pass censorship. On the brink of dark times, the first thing they take away from us is the capacity to create. 
> 
> I know nothing about anything, but I have a feeling I am on the right path regarding two things: our rights, freedom and identity are not given, they are taken, and fear corrupts the mind like nothing else. Creation is dangerous to those who are stuck in time. They would not survive to be altered by words. And this is exactly why we must keep writing.

“Who were you talking to, earlier?” Kylo spoke after a very long moment of silence, curious about what he had witnessed back then as he stalked the templar, Hux’s talk of senseless dreams and pleas for someone who wasn’t there to go away. Kylo thought, at first, the templar had been driven insane by the use of lyrium, but then he reasoned that, to non-mages, the interaction with the tears in the Fade inside the forest could not be controlled. Kylo himself had had much trouble understanding what was real and what was not in the Brecilian Forest, but eventually he learned to walk on its grounds, careful not to dwell too deep into the ways of the Fade. If he weren’t cut off from it by the ward, he would feel the spirit’s eyes upon him, as they always were. Hux considered for a moment how much he should disclose and wondered how much of what he had said was heard by the apostate.

“A spirit. Actually, there were more, but they were just watching”

“That’s what they usually do” Kylo found it easy to relate to spirits, far easier than talking to them, as they usually got inside one’s head and that was precisely what Kylo didn’t want anyone or anything to do. He could understand what it was like to be always watching, seeing life through the eyes of others that seemed more human than him. He sensed Hux’s discomfort. “I learned that they can’t actually create feelings, that they always mirror your thoughts and only repeat what you already believe”

“Does the same goes for demons?” the Harrowing filled Hux’s mind. Could the demon be right?  Did he have all that anger inside of him?

“Not always. They already fed too much on the feelings of others, were corrupted by them, and most likely will try to change your mind about something so that they can possess you” Kylo had been lured by many despair demons through his walks on the Fade as a child, he wondered if demons talked to the other children of the Circle as well, in their dreams, and if they felt tempted to let them in.

“But what if the demon had already possessed someone?”. Kylo had to take pause for a moment to think.

“Then I would guess they had nothing to gain out of it” Hux bit his lip. _‘I would be able to convince you to let me in, if circumstances were different’_ the demon had said, and, deep down, Hux believed it was true. Kylo turned his head to look at Hux, giving a shot at soothing the other man’s seemingly troubled thoughts “It is a terrible thing, when the demon really gets to you”

“I guess you would know better than me” Hux stopped furrowing his brow, not wanting the apostate to see through his tense features. He met Kylo’s gaze with a defensiveness that was borderline aggressive, and instantly regretted having said that. The apostate blinked, as if processing the accusation, and turned his face to the ceiling once again. “I didn’t…”

“You did” Kylo didn’t let him finish “I know what you think of me, but I never allowed myself to be possessed”

“You don’t”

“What?”

“You don’t know what I think of you” Hux didn’t really know _what_ to think of the apostate before him.

“You think what every templar thinks, you were trained to think this way, as we mages were trained to see ourselves through the same hateful eyes. Someone who is more afraid of themselves than of what oppresses them will never rebel”

“I’ve met good mages” Hux thought of Eleos and Finn. He thought of the herbology classes in the Circle, about the children sitting on the floor around a teacher that taught them how to make plants come back to life. And dead and dried out elfroots would show green and healthy leaves once again after a touch of the old man’s fingers.

“You think they are good because they are chained, and you hunt down the ones who are free. Do you know what it is like to live inside a Circle?”

“I live in the Circle Tower of Lake Calenhad”

“Yes, but do you know what is like to not being the one holding the keys to the door? To be sent there by your non-mage family because they were too scared of you, always whispering behind your back as a child, always watching you? And then, suddenly, you are miles away from home but everyone still thinks you are an aberration” Kylo tug as his bindings, feeling too vulnerable.

“Was this what happened to you?” Hux whispered, but Kylo kept silent, his eyes glued to the ceiling. Hux had never expected life within the Circle to be an easy one, but thought mages were at least happy to live among their equals, to pursue their abilities in a safe environment. It was challenging to him seeing the Circle as a prison.

“That’s what happens to all of us” Kylo spoke finally. He used to dream about being a sailor just life his father, to cross the Waking Sea on his mighty ship that cut through the waters with the huge bronze falcon attached to its front, guiding him to distant lands that would no longer keep their secrets hidden from him. After he was taken away from home, the Waking Sea stretched out before him as far as the eyes could see. But he could only watch it through barred windows, the Gates of Kirkwall reminding him that the rest of the world was to be forever out of his reach.

“I do not think I would want it to be any different, though” Kylo added.

“How so?” Hux frowned, he thought all the apostate wanted was for things to be different. _He_ certainly did.

“There is something to gain from all of this if one can rationalize it” Kylo had been taught to shut away things such as doubt or sadness. Only anger and pain belonged within him, they were given form by Snoke’s twisted words and then redirected towards some obscure goal “It certainly made me more… driven” he concluded with the acute feeling that was not the word he had wanted to say, not even the correct meaning he wanted to express. But it came out so naturally, he had no clue what was wrong with it, even if it left him deeply unsettled. He shut away that feeling as well.

Hux found Kylo repeating the words of his father, every cut and bruise a way towards more anger and violence, and not something to be tended to so it could heal properly. Neither templar nor apostate knew they shared the habit of tearing open their wounds just as they began to heal. Hux felt the urge to say he understood, and then to say he no longer believed that kind of rage could get anyone anywhere, but he kept quiet as if he were afraid of speaking his mind and listen to his father’s voice shouting of _weakness_. Kylo got frustrated by the other man’s silence, wondering if he had said something wrong.

“So, you do not regret anything you’ve done” Hux shook his head pensively, maybe he had been wrong when he decided to bring the apostate along, maybe he wouldn’t be able to change. Did he expect the apostate would _turn_? Is _that_ why he didn’t kill him?

“I did not say that” Kylo didn’t expect those words to come out of his mouth. The first templar he killed on his way out of the Circle Tower was the closest Kylo ever got to bliss. On the few more he killed after that, he imagined his mother watching him raising his staff, and his father watching him finishing it off with a killing spell. If before they took a step back in fear, he would give them a sight to behold.

“Why would you regret anything? You hate templars, to you we are…”

“I wasn’t told who the Templars were, I was _shown_. But you were told who mages were, so you tell me, who am I?” Kylo’s tone wasn’t one of mockery, he had fearful eyes avoiding looking at him for all his life, without been given a single reason as to why.

“Maker, I wish I knew” Hux was picking at his fingernails, not knowing if he was being affected by the apostate’s words or needing his daily dose of lyrium “Thing would be far much simpler if I knew who you were, if you had just followed the natural order of things and just finished me off…”

“You would rather I had killed you than having a conversation with me?”

“This _isn’t_ a _conversation_ , Kylo” he didn’t realize he had spoken his name for the first time “I just need time to figure out what _to_ _do_ with you, given that I ignored direct orders to _kill_ you” Kylo blinked at that, but otherwise kept a blank face.

“And what did you do that for? I told you to go through with it”

“Because monsters don’t simply ask to die!” Hux stood up and Kylo immediately sat up on the floor, not wanting to be lying down in case the templar went for his sword “They want to keep being monsters, so you tell me what you are… preferred to die over fighting me, monster don’t simply want to stop being monsters” Hux was scratching over the cloth that covered his burn, pain washing over him, a punishment for being so _weak_.

While they stood there, watching each other, a strong rush of wind came from the cave entrance, as if the forest, in all its wisdom, was stretching invisible fingers and fumbling with the locks of their hair. It felt to each one of them as if they were staring at their reflected image on the mirror. They did not dare to move, afraid that the other would copy the exact same gesture and that would be finally confirmed the frightful possibility they so much dreaded, that something of one of them already found its way inside the other and there took root. That they would never again be able to go back to what they were. As if understanding the dangerous role light was playing in that situation, only useful to make the eyes make out the outline of the bodies, the limit of one man and the beginning of the other, the invisible hand decided the shadows were where those limits were surpassed, and opposites could blend together. The hand closed around the fire that burned on the top of the oil pool and extinguished its flames.

Both men stood in silence for a moment after everything went dark, listening attentively for any signs of movement. Hux then dropped to his knees, spread hands groping around him, trying to find his sword. Kylo began to talk as soon as he realized what was happening.

“There was a templar in the Circle Tower of Kirkwall. Sir Thrask. He wasn’t a bad man” he began, keeping his voice steady “He used to sneak out some of the children to the Wounded Coast. I never went with him, but nobody seemed to understand how some kids suddenly got a tan. It drove the templars crazy. Eventually, they concluded that it must have been some kind of sorcery” Kylo heard Hux’s frenetic search for his weapon subside, so he kept talking to let the templar know exactly where he was. “He was kind to me, he let me access the restricted section of the library, which had much more books of banned religious comedies and on the erotic uses of spells than on blood magic or things of the sort” Kylo heard Hux fumbling around his sack, none of his movements sounded rushed “Later, I found out through one of Luke’s letters that sir Thrask had a mage for a daughter. My uncle was pleading to Knight-commander Meredith to cast him out of the Templar Order, for his daughter had escaped the circle and turned into an abomination. He was also suspected of treason, of helping mages escape for good” Hux began to bang two rocks together, creating sparks just next to where Kylo was sitting, they were closed now than they have ever been since they entered the cave, and so Kylo tried to make his voice sound as soothing as possible, his hands kept steady so the chains didn’t clink. _‘Listen to me. I’m still here. I’m not moving’_. “But I don’t believe he did all that only because of his daughter. There must have been a lot of good in him not to forsaken her for who she was, and to also be kind to others while undergoing such a loss”

The sparks finally ignited the oil which burnt bright once again. Hux’s eyes met Kylo’s.

“Why did you do that?” he whispered to the apostate. Kylo glanced at the weapon besides Hux, still untouched, lying on the floor on the opposing side of the cave.

“You wanted me to tell you who I was”

Hux didn’t have time to answer for they heard steps just out of the cave’s entrance. Kylo jumped to his feet and Hux let go of the rocks to grab his sword. He flew his palm at Kylo, meaning he was to wait. But the apostate knew no one other than Snoke’s blood mages would be out in the forest in the middle of the night. He ran to block the way between the templar and the mouth of the cave, bound hands stretched out in front of him, pleading that Hux would stop. The templar hesitated for a moment, blinking in confusion, then advanced while hunching forward, as if expecting Kylo to attack.

The apostate would conjure a time-stopping spell at that moment if the ward would let him. He wished he could stop everything and save that moment inside his mind, every lock of hair falling on Hux’s face, the color that filled his eyes, the way his hand was clasped around the grip of his sword and how it gleamed under the flickering lights cast by the flames. He wished he had time so he could remember every detail, if this was the last time he saw the other man alive. _‘I almost got to know you’_.

But he couldn’t find forgiveness in time neither.

Kylo launched himself forward.

_‘Please, you don’t understand’_

Hux didn’t think before moving the tip of his sword away from Kylo so that the blade didn’t go through his belly. He found the apostate’s fingers curling around his own, trying to make him let go of his sword. Kylo was pushed away, his back hit the stone wall. He faced Hux for only an instant before stumbling towards the entrance and finding himself face to face with a feathery mask he knew too well.

“We need him alive” Kylo rushed over his words, still standing on the path to the templar inside the cave “He comes from…” the masked figure pushed him aside and pointed a long, slim staff at the templar who raised his sword and began to take large unsteady steps forward. Hux’s colorless skin was visibly glowing under a thin layer of sweat, his vision has become blurred, and even so he charged forward at someone whose face he couldn’t see, an imposing figure taller and stronger than him. A faceless enemy made things easier, one could project anything inhuman over it. Hux thought of demons and monsters, of heroes who slayed the dragon, and let himself forget there was flesh underneath the mask. He had made a mistake regarding Kylo Ren, he knew it now, and his chest tightened at the sight of the apostate by the masked mage’s side. Hux stared right into the staff’s core, a blinding blue light emanating from it, freezing the air around it.

“Lake Calenhad” Kylo bellowed, eyes wide “He comes from Lake Calenhad”

The staff was immediately unkindled, it parried the templar’s blade and swirled to make Hux’s trembling fingers lose their grip. A hand grabbed the side of the templar’s head and smacked it against the rock.

Hux’s body fell, limp, on the ground. Kylo resisted the urge to fall to his knees and put pressure on the bleeding wound. He gazed at the masked figure and made his voice plain, concealing an apprehensiveness that felt too much like pain and stung his insides. He asked that feeling the same question over and over, frantically, ‘ _why?_ ’, ‘ _why?_ ’, ‘ _why??_ ’. No answer besides it growing stronger, making impossible for him to feel relief for a rescue that felt nothing like one.

“Thank you for coming for me, Phasma” and he caught himself redirecting all the strength he had left to keep his mind together. Regardless, he could feel a tingling sensation, a crack that slowly crept up his head, cutting through him mercilessly, dividing his being into two. 

He had said that to her many times before. He had been grateful for everything she had showed him in the Circle, for opening a clear path for them to escape when the templars began storming in and inflicting their right of annulment, for taking him to Snoke and teaching him everything she knew until his ability surpassed her own. She had guided him to be who he needed to be. But, now, he could want more than to need to be, he could _want_ to be. And he wanted something else.

“You didn’t come back last night” she simply stated, everything cause and consequence.

“Are there others with you?” he would have sensed it if not for the ward. He was used to not knowing why he said the things he said, but at that moment he knew he was gathering information. She turned her mask to him, slowly. It was as if the wind had stopped blowing, the multiple black and silver feathers sticking out of the mask’s leather were completely static, rigid just like her posture.

“Do you question my abilities?”

“You know I wouldn’t” Phasma had been brought to the Circle unusually late, when she was already a teenager. She already had an entire life left behind, living as an apostate in the Western Approach’s deserts. Kylo’s questions were always left unanswered by words, but she didn’t need to tell him anything else besides showing him what she could do for Kylo to imagine why she had to learn so much only to survive.

“I would begin to question yours” she looked at Hux’s unconscious body and let down her shoulders, as if she was disappointed for not having been given more of a challenge. She even took off her mask and put it away inside her silver robes, not needing it anymore to incite fear.

“They get weak when they’re out of lyrium” Kylo knew he would not sense any suspicion on her voice even if she were questioning him directly. He gave her an answer he thought would satisfy her and even impose itself to him as the truth. But he knew he was lying, that made him grow more desperate. He felt treacherous and impure, his thoughts no longer ran across his mind, they slithered.  

“Where are the keys?” Phasma pointed at the cuffs clasped around Kylo’s wrists.

“In his sack, I suppose” he said absent-mindedly, he couldn’t take his eyes off all that blood.

“I’ll bring him inside, and then he will tell us what he knows” Kylo knew Hux would never talk, and so fear settled down on his stomach as he imagined what Phasma would do once she realized the same. She took a step towards the templar.

“Let me take him” Kylo said abruptly, already kneeling down by Hux’s side, never glancing away from the wound that seemed to be bleeding much less, now plastering the templar’s hair against his forehead.

“You can barely stand, you are shackled, you know I’m stronger than you” Phasma listed the facts, as if trying to get to the reason Kylo was offering to carry Hux. She ran her eyes over Kylo’s body.

“Have you eaten anything?” her voice didn’t show pity, or concern for that matter. She was simply trying to figure out weather Kylo could fight or not.

“No” he remembered snapping at Hux when he was offered food. Hux couldn’t have known Kylo wasn’t to be offered any food. Phasma tilted her head and grabbed Hux, pulling him up roughly, not caring about causing any more damage. Kylo was left kneeling on the floor, the pool of blood growing before his eyes, washing over the soil, tainting all the leaves around him red, red as it was now the sky which poured waterfalls of blood directly over him.

   

* * *

 

 Inside the cave, the oil still burned vividly. Phasma threw Hux on the floor with such force he woke up, startled. He took a few ragged breaths as he tried to steady himself and sit up straight, then a painful expression shot across his face and he rose his hand to the deep cut on his head. He felt cold. An enormous figure was towering over him. Kylo was standing on the other side of the cave. Hux felt colder.

“Don’t try to stand up” she was holding her staff by her side. Hux was shivering now, his insides screamed for lyrium, for him to regain control of what was happening around him, to bend the world to his will. He could feel the energy of the mage standing before him, wild and pulsating, he was terrified of it. “What are you doing? Did the templar get so much to you that once again you believe you belong in shackles?”

Phasma was speaking to Kylo who stood as far from her as he could. He blinked as if he had just been slapped and walked to the sack laying on the floor completely unaware of his surroundings, feeling like he was struggling to wake up. He started fumbling around the sack for the keys, and then he sensed that he was being observed. Kylo glimpsed at Hux as discretely as he could. What he saw made his heart sink. He preferred the templar’s eyes to be wide with terror than empty and tired, as if he knew this was going to happen, as if he had known it from the very start, from the moment Kylo said he wasn’t going to fight him. Kylo had done many of the things others believed him to be doomed to do, relishing the feeling that he terrified all by being their own creation. Not anymore. Just for once, he wanted someone believed him when he said…

_‘I am not going to do anything’_

Kylo twisted his wrist so that the key went inside the padlock, he turned it and the cuffs snapped open with a _click_.

_‘I’ll keep my hands visible’_

He reached for the cuffs as they slipped from his wrists, but they fell on the dirt, heavily, as if drawing attention to the wicked thing that was taking place. Kylo felt his shoulder blades come together, his figure shrinking down and seeking to disappear.

_‘I won’t hurt you’_

Kylo felt undeserving of having his hands to himself. He spent years being Snoke’s wild animal, kept on a tight leash. He didn’t know if he could control his hands, believed that they would not obey him, that they would carry on doing what they were trained to do. And that, that would hurt everyone around him.

The ward’s seal broken, Kylo was in an instant connected to the Fade again. The sudden rush washing through his body as the whispers filled his head once more, the forest coming alive, welcoming him back where all things were connected, all were things he knew well. But the feeling of belonging that he so much craved didn’t come. All there was was the urge to scrub his hands down to the bone, until they were clean.

Hux watched Kylo step back to the apposite side of the cave, hands clasped together at his front. No, he couldn’t be retracting because he was scared of Hux, not in the weak state he found himself in. He wasn’t joining the other mage either. Hux wondered why. Why he had kept talking when the fire went out, why, if he was so angry, if he sought revenge for all he suffered in the hands of Templars, he hadn’t killed Hux before, and still didn’t do it.

“Lake Calenhad” the mage before him said, no more words followed. Hux thought of his father, of his frail figure, crumbling down under his own weight, of the soldiers he grew up with, of the young mages that went through the tower’s front doors in screams. Then the circle repeated itself and he thought again of his father, an iron fist crushing Hux from above, of the soldiers he grew up with, empty minds and hearts blinded by the Chant of Light that found joy in putting out all the light the world once had, dragging down young screaming mages with them. All for the sake of a Maker, they had things _unmade_. He imagined blood mages storming in, killing everyone on sight, purifying at last what should have been the final stand of the Chantry in all its righteousness. There, Hux saw the Night, and yet he felt he had to protect it.

“I am not telling you anything”. He even managed to sound brave. Even with his eyesight darkening at the corners, his hand painfully pressing down on the wound on his head, skin pale and insides twisting around in fear. He said it like his father would like to hear it.

“You chose the hard way” the tall woman stated. That was his _home_ , all he had ever known. Not only the last standing Circle, but where the young man’s mind went when it needed to forget when his faith faltered and dissipate all uncertainty. He took his eyes off her, but could barely make Kylo’s shape out among the shadows in which he was hiding. _Why was everything being taken from him?_

Phasma pointed her staff to the templar, a gelid feeling took over his body as he focused on the shinning blue light inside its core, sucking out all hope that he was going to walk out of that cave. He hadn’t noticed he was under the effects of a spell until it was too late to fight it. It crept in from the extremities of his body, the tips of his fingers became numb, and then the seemingly harmless sensation found its way to his chest. Hux’s body gave a jolt as he comprehended the spell had taken over his entire being, all that was buried underneath, all he shoved violently below the surface, came out to play with his mind. The templar searched madly for his soul, for that almost imperceptible warmth he worked so hard to keep safe and pure, but he found himself hollow. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, telling himself that was just another nightmare, but found himself neither in bed, neither inside that cave.

He saw sunlight, saw the sunbeams reflected on the surface of Lake Calenhad, and then his vision went blurred, his hearing muffled, as his father threw him to the waters. He was floating, then suffocating. And when he thrashed around desperately enough to get to the riverside, gasping for air, his father gave him an scrutinizing look and said _‘I thought you wouldn’t make it’_.

He then saw cuts, all the cuts and bruises he got from training that marked his pale skin, and that image was replaced by the glow of the vial of refined lyrium that came after each day of practice. It was the only thing that truly made him feel _something_. So, he would only drink half of it, only enough to perform the most basic tasks that were required of him. That made him stall behind the other soldiers sometimes, and so the whispers questioned his competence and attributed his permanence on the ranks to his father’s position. He told himself he was safeguarding from the ‘lyrium madness’. In truth, he didn’t believe he deserved to feel something.

He saw his hands, pressed hard against each other in front of his bowed head, and while his father chanted a prayer for strength and bravery that echoed on the chapel’s walls, Hux only prayed for forgiveness and death.

Finally, he saw his sword running through apostates as young as him. And then, he was scrubbing ragged cloths over the blade all night long, placing it at last over the flames burning in the fireplace so there were no stains to tell what it had done.  

“Phasma, that’s enough” Kylo took a step forward. When the mage put down her staff, Hux instantly felt as if an ice first unclenched his heart. He took a deep, shaky breath, and had to bury inside his throat a whisper that was mean for Kylo. _‘Thank you’_.

Kylo was well acquainted with the kind of despair Hux had just been put through. Snoke’s jinx ensured that all under his command behaved exemplarily, for any astray sheep would be shown the worst of punishments, one delivered by their own minds.

And so, it was like looking in the mirror.

The longer the blood mages were under Snoke’s control, the more meaningless the punishment became. When the mage standing before the Blood Emperor’s unforgiving eyes and outstretched hand would not do so much as flinch even when the most horrifying images flashed before his or her eyes, his ever-growing army had gained one more soldier. Kylo wondered what Hux might have seen.

The templar had his eyes closed and his breath steadied now, he was focusing, meditating, trying to regain control over his body and thoughts for he had just been shown he had nothing, not even a home, to live for. If he still wanted to survive, it was only so that he could run as far away from it as possible.

“Lake Calenhad” Phasma said once more, but Hux didn’t seem to be listening. His mind wondered towards what he had heard of Orlais. He imagined the warm summer welcoming fields of flowers that grew under its sunrays, the masquerades that equally flourished under the fascinating secrecy that permeated all human interactions. Hux realized he never learned how to dance. Inside his thoughts, the Breach flashed, a huge mouth, opened wide to swallow up the world. Sometimes, a troupe of actors stopped by the barracks and were let it to entertain the troops. They played music and made their bodies twist in crazy ways. Then, they told tales that had nothing to do with good triumphing over evil. Things that were not that simple. After some time, they weren’t allowed in anymore, and Hux forgot all stories that had no moral to their end. Hux’s mind was leading him down all those incomprehensible and tortuous paths because it believed it was dying. “I won’t say it again” her voice seemed distant to the templar, he found no place for it in the grand scheme of things. His eyes snapped open, meeting those of the apostate standing on the back of the cave. Kylo’s eyes were huge, as if afraid of something. A thought crossed Hux’s mind and he had to tear it up piece by piece, for it was absurd, enraging. The Templar Killer could not be afraid _for_ Hux. He was the enemy, and if Hux was to survive he should take no chances.

Kylo Ren had never been on his side, and yet why he felt _betrayed_?

“There is one way to take it down” Hux pushed the words out of his mouth as Phasma picked up her staff again. Not a single emotion crossed her face, but she seemed to be listening intently. “And you won’t need to lift a finger for it to happen. You just need to wait. Wait, and let it crumble from within”. He realized he wasn’t lying. Not to her, not to himself, and that might be a first. But Phasma didn’t seem satisfied with the answer.

“I already know that” she didn’t lower her weapon “Everyone knows that. The Chantry has no place in this world anymore, it is only evident that the Templars and the Circles will soon follow. Give me something I don’t know, templar” she ignited the core again.

Kylo realized he was seeing a side to Phasma he didn’t know existed. Her voice was rising, her grip on the staff was strong enough to get her knuckles white. Whatever that was, wasn’t the cold pragmatism he was used to see. She knew the last Circle would not last for much longer, and yet she didn’t seem to intend to let it just fade away alongside an old world that had lost its foundations. _She_ had to be the one to destroy it.

The dreadful feeling found its way back to Hux. His hands flew to his chest, trying to shield his heart, to preserve its heat. Shutting down his eyes did not make it stop. And there he was, kneeling before an altar. He was being watched, he was always being watched. He was always guilty, he didn’t know of what. He felt that there was more, there were way more things coming out of the dark corners of his mind. It was enough to make him lose touch with reality and to leave him broken. He braced himself, for, Maker, they were coming.

But it was all over soon, it felt like he was pulled out of freezing waters that made him feel a thousand thorns were brushing at his skin, neither leaving him alone, neither giving him the pain he was promised, the pain he _deserved_.

“Stop” Kylo’s voice sounded muffled and feeble. As Hux opened his eyes, his sight was burned by the blazing light coming from the fire. Still, he was able to distinguish the blurred image of the Jedi Killer holding Phasma by her arm, pulling her staff away from Hux. She yanked her arm from his hands.

“Tell me you don’t want this” she spat through clenched teeth, not even turning to face the apostate “Tell me you don’t want a _reckoning_. He is the only thing standing in the way. You never stopped my hand before” she provoked, making Kylo remember all the times he could have avoided more bloodshed, and didn’t. Instead, he savored every single drop spilled. She thought that would remind Kylo of who he was. And indeed, he was reminded. And that was _exactly what he needed_ not to go back.

It was as if a dark shadow crossed Kylo’s face. Hux flinched at the change on the other man’s expression, he even forgot about the throbbing pain on his head as he wondered what had changed inside Kylo’s mind. The apostate backed away to where he was standing before, but didn’t stop, he kept retracting towards the cave’s entrance.

The chilling wind ruffled his hair, sending shivers down the back of Kylo’s neck. He crunched down, knowing almost exactly where it had fallen, and after only a few moments moving his fingers around in the dark, he held the grip of the templar’s sword. _It felt exactly how he imagined_ it would feel. It felt like _nothing_. An absence of feeling shaped like a blade, weightless as he wielded it. Of course. It belonged to a templar, and the Fade, through which Kylo sensed everything around him, couldn’t touch it.

_It couldn’t touch it._

Kylo silently slipped back inside the cave, Phasma didn’t even seem to notice he had been gone for a moment. She kept peering down at Hux, trying to either understand how to make him talk or how to break his spirit with her stare alone. Hux, on his turn, had seen Kylo go out into the night and come back with his hands hidden behind his back. The templar tried to make sense of that, trying to focus despite the pounding ache on his head. Then he saw it, the tip of the sword he left behind when disarmed, shinning deadly and treacherous behind the wavering of Kylo’s ragged black robes. Hux held his breath in and then pressed his back against the harsh stone wall.

_Why?_

But the apostate’s eyes were locked on Phasma.

“Stop, we can put an end to this” the shadow had left Kylo’s features, his eyes looked sunken and exhausted. His voice was a mere whisper.

This time, Phasma turned to face him. Her eyes assessed every inch of Kylo, as if seeing him for the first time.

“Phasma” the way he called her name was had a warm and comforting tone to it, for it had downed on him that she was his oldest and only friend. Wrath had nurtured them both during years inside the Circle, it bonded them as if they shared the same roots. “Phasma, I am being torn apart” he said hoarsely while he stood with his back hidden in the shadows and his petrified face, on which gleamed teary eyes, exposed by the firelight.

“Show me your hands, Kylo” her voice was as cold as the core of her staff.

“What do you think you’ll see if I do?” his lips were trembling, the corners of his mouth twitching. He knew what she thought that was, he knew the ghost Phasma expected at every corner. That hurt him deeply.

“The true face of someone who was once my ally”. It was written all over her hardened expression. She was thinking of her brother, of how, one day, their paths had to stray. And ever since then, everything in her life revolved around one thing only, _betrayal_. She was hurting as well, but she wouldn’t let it show.

Kylo slowly showed her the weapon, its tip turned to the ground. But Phasma would only see what she already expected, and it was as if the blade was pointed directly at her neck. Her staff twisted in the air and a shard of ice went flying from its core. Kylo swung the blade at it and what followed was exactly as he had expected.

_The Fade couldn’t touch it._

The edge of the shard was the first thing to melt against the metal, and then it exploded into a cloud of white power.

“Phasma, please” Kylo begged, trying to explain while swallowing convulsively, his throat feeling tight with despair “I am not going to…” but she interrupted him by shooting more pointy shards at him, moving quickly, forcing him to spin the blade around to stop them from getting to him.

Hux struggled to drag his body out of harms way, his limbs held him down, unresponsive, burdensome. That wasn’t an outcome he had foreseen, of all those he had predicted, and he didn’t have time to think about what he had to do. His heart, kicking back to life through the ice walls the mage had wrapped around it, was thumping violently, triggered be the instinct to flee or fight. Fighting was not an option, he could only drag himself along the stone wall.

Hux realized he was going to die, a shard of ice was going to run through his heart and he would be put down in a fight that wasn’t even his own. He would be collateral damage, no glory to be had from that. So, he clenched his hands on top of his chest. Eleos was right, he was a fool to think he only needed a sword. He needed his heart.

 _Maker let him protect it_.

As Hux muttered a silent prayer, a shadow was projected over him. He looked up, his ragged breaths condensing and forming a white mist as it went past his lips. Kylo was before Hux, his back turned to him, standing between the templar and the flickering flames, shielding him from Phasma.

“I see” the woman bellowed, stopping, for a moment, the swirl of her staff. She gazed at both men, blinking twice “Is that why you think he’s here” she picked up the weapon once more “To _save your soul_?” she shot right at Hux, a long shard with many twisted edges which met Kylo’s blade as it spun dangerously close to Hux’s skin. _Too close_. Kylo held his breath in, trying to regain control over his hands.

Why was he doing this?

“No” Kylo said, and Hux didn’t have a clue as to why he believed him. There was something there, wavering, unreachable to Hux’s grasp. Reasons unknown to the templar, but, for some reason, it was an unknown he surprisingly didn’t fear. Reasons that led Kylo to surrender without a fight, and to, over and over, choose to keep not fighting. As Hux allowed himself to let go of the breath he was holding, he had chosen to believe the promise Kylo had kept again and again, that the tip of that sword was not directed at him.

Hux felt a cold prickle at his hand, he brushed his fingers over it and saw that they left a wet trace behind.

White dots laid themselves at the stone floor, slowly dancing in the air as they came down. Hux followed them with his eyes, watched them fall, contrast against the black of Kylo’s hair, melt when they approached the flames which burned the oil. _Snow_. Hux looked up at the cave’s ceiling from where the snowflakes came, appearing from nowhere. Soon, everything was covered in white, a brightness that hurt his eyes. Across the cave, Phasma stood still as stone. In stone as well seemed to be carved her features. The cold spoke for her, everything her face did not show was told by the freezing sensation that took hold of everything, down to the bone.

“I’ll let you make your way back, Kylo” she tilted her chin at Hux “Once you prove to me where your loyalty lays”

_Please don’t make me do it._

Kylo felt a shiver running down his spine. He didn’t turn to look at Hux, he wouldn’t bear to see him closing his eyes, muttering a prayer to a Maker he believed he would encounter shortly, certain that Kylo would really end his life. Hux did nothing of the sort, but the apostate couldn’t see it.

When Phasma targeted Hux once more, letting out but a hint of renewed hate on her eyes, Kylo raised the blade, making it gleam against the skin of his arm right bellow the wrist. It sliced through it, a red stream dripping from his hand on the floor. The drops of blood were swallowed by the dirt, disappeared into it, and came back out across the room at Phasma’s feet, raising in scarlet strings that wrapped around her arms and pulled them to the ground. Hux felt his lips quiver at the sight of dark magic.

“It was me who taught you that” Phasma had her hair covering her eyes, her arms pinned down by her sides.

“Not all of it” Kylo’s hand reached out, fingers bent, closing around something Hux could not see. A string of blood shot out from the ground straight towards Phasma’s neck, and she began to gasp for air. Kylo could feel her pushing back, through that peculiar bond that connected them in the Fade spilled glimpses of images from both minds, brought together by blood. Phasma’s thoughts were like sand being blown away by the wind, and sand was all Kylo could see, memories of a childhood fighting for scrapes in the wasteland. The sand prickled at his eyes, got sucked in by every breath he took, rasped at his throat. He didn’t know what his own mind was letting slip away, he focused in getting at least one message across.

_I’m sorry._

Phasma pushed back one last time before her world went dark. Only one thing kept her going. Every single person who had seen her without her mask was dead, she had seen to that. Everyone but Kylo, everyone but that templar who she had believed would be gone as soon as he gave her what she wanted. There never was room for such thing as feelings, she needed to survive, and that was all. And so, she was surprised to feel a tightness on her chest.

Her skin was now as pale as the snowflakes slowly falling at her feet. Her lips were a pale shade of purple, but still they tried to form words.

_I let you know me._

And then, the sound of an explosion that left Hux’s ears ringing. Phasma was running towards them after quickly recollecting herself. Kylo still held the sword with its tips turned down. He wouldn’t do it. Her staff was directed at Kylo’s chest. Hux knew he wouldn’t do it. Suddenly, not knowing how, he found himself on his feet, taking the sword from the apostate’s hand. Hux turned its tip up, shielding Kylo’s body, not thinking, not even feeling when Phasma’s body was impaled by it. She now stood so close to him, he could feel her cold breath against his forehead. But she wasn’t paying attention to him, her glassy eyes were locked on Kylo, who stood behind the templar. Phasma stood up as long as she could, until her mind was taken over by fog, she fell on her knees, and then on the ground.

Hux fell down beside her and, in a panicked state, backed away until his back hit the cave wall. Blinking through the blinding pain on his head, he watched the apostate carefully, suddenly aware of what he had done. Kylo’s face was unreadable, covered by the dark locks of his hair that were plastered against his skin by sweat. His chest expanded and retracted in a steady rhythm, but he just stood there, paralyzed, eyes glued to Phasma’s body. The snow was gone, all of it, as if had never been there.

Kylo’s first movement made Hux’s entire body flinch. But the apostate only slowly kneeled, extending his fingers to Phasma’s face and closing her eyelids. He then crunched down on her, embracing her lifeless body with his arms, and pressing it against his chest, burying his face on her neck. That silent ritual went on for a long time, enough so that blood flourished on the floor, floating in the air to find its way back into the cut on Kylo’s arm, which also closed itself and left no scar behind. Long enough so that ghostly figures began to close in from the cave’s entrance and emerge from its solid walls.

Hux was dazzled by the fact that he could see them, and even more surprised to find no trace of distress within him as he watched them draw nearer. He had found calm in the understanding that the spirits were drawn by the all-consuming emotions being experienced by both men right now, and even by the agonizing apprehension and violence that were taking place until then, for those also left echoes. But the spirits did not carry themselves as if they were lurking, preying upon it like one would do to a feast. They approached in complete silence, their ever-changing features seemed to always carry the weight of affliction, their heads were bowed, as if paying respects. Hux was reminded of how the Fade had been a safe place to hide as he dreamed, and now it was clear to him he had closed the door on all that the Fade could be. He looked around searching for impureness, corruption, he wondered if the body lying on the floor had its soul still intact. But he found only men, and beings that were somewhere in between but were no less human for it, for Hux was sure they felt that pain all the same. 

Kylo slipped his hand in one of Phasma’s pockets on the inside part of her well-kept grey robes, and pulled out her leather mask which felt worn under his touch, as if it were already a thing that belonged in the past. He held it tightly for a moment before lifting his face from her neck and carefully sliding the mask down over her face, where he felt it belonged. The dark feathers sticking out from it were now far from a terrifying sight, it was just nature was claiming her back. He wasn’t ready to let go when the spirits came close enough to start respectfully pulling her body from him. He wanted to hold on to her, keep whispering his apologies, knowing that it laid on him entirely the fault that all of that happened. It not even crossed his mind he wasn’t the one who had molded their minds to kill in his name. It had to be all him, and all because he had doubts.

If he had listened to her, they would be going back together by that time. Back to what they knew, to what was right as rain. Kylo felt it was the right thing to do to desire that now, that all went back to what was like before, but he couldn’t, he dreaded the thought, it nauseated him and terrified him as much as the relentless change produced by what started as inconsequent thoughts. He was told that would happen, the Emperor assured him the shameful seeds of doubt would blossom into shameful actions, and they, like weeds, would take over every inch of the mind and extend its vicious roots into reality. As Kylo sat there, at Phasma’s side, he waited for the sky to collapse on him, for his soul to burn inside him like the flames of damnation, for everything to end and never be again. But nothing happened, he kept sensing the cold air make its way through his throat and come out warm through his parted lips. Damnation didn’t come, and neither did shame as he now understood things could not have been any different. Snoke’s words were, for the first time, proven to be false, setting Kylo free from every fatalistic omen that left Snoke’s mouth to settle heavily on his shoulders. If he had come back with Phasma to the Blood Emperor, he would have enslaved her once again. He gave her a choice, including the choice of walking away, and she wrote her own ending, as Kylo wrote his own truth.

Now, her body was fluctuating high above the ground, being held up by many almost translucid hands.  The procession marched out the cave’s entrance at a slow pace, she would be returned to the forest to finally rest among its roots. Kylo’s hands were left empty as he sat on the ground, he stared at them. He gave a command to his index finger, it twitched. Then, he spread his palms and turned them up and down. His movements did not betray him, only asserted his agency over himself. He was both frightened and excited by such responsibility. Soon, he found all those emotions being overpowered by the oppressive emptiness of mourning. But he remembered something else, he was not alone.  

Kylo snapped back to reality when he caught the sound of Hux’s rapid breathing. He turned his head to the templar, realizing his cheeks were warmed up by the stream of tears that had ran down through them. Hux held his gaze for a moment, and then eyed the sword and staff at an arm’s length from the apostate.

“Please, don’t think I will do that” Kylo shook his head, he couldn’t bear if Hux looked saw him like did the others. _Not him_.

“I’m sorry, she came… it was so fast” Hux was stuttering, his head screamed that he had killed the apostate’s friend and, for that, he would seek revenge. The templar found himself in a panicked state, knowing fully well he was in no shape to fight. But still, amidst all that frenzy conditioned by his training as a soldier, he found a thin line of wavering calm to which he could hold on. What he thought and what he sensed were two wildly different things by then, logic admitted only one fatal outcome, but his heart sang a different tune. Hux was about to suppress such feelings once again only to remember that he was, in what he thought to be his final moments as Phasma attacked, trying to protect at all costs the heart he once had thought he didn’t need. He listened to what it had to say through a feeble whisper, as if it had almost lost the capacity to speak. He listened while looking into Kylo’s eyes.

“You saved my life” Kylo never thought he would be saying those words while being thankful. He glanced at the weapons by his side “Please, I would never…” he didn’t know how to finish that sentence. He was afraid to ask Hux to trust him, as he was sure the answer would be disheartening. _‘I would never… not you. What is it about you that makes me incapable of such a thing? I’ve stained my hands with before, so what is it about you?’._

Meanwhile, Hux felt his panic subside. He, who lived in a constant state of alertness, felt calm in a drowsy way. ‘ _Why you? I’ve seen what your magic can do. I have feared those such as yourself before and I’ve stopped a few like you before. So why you?_ ’ He raised his hand once more to the wound on his head, he found the skin around it numb and his arm heavier than he remembered it to be.

“Let me save yours. Please. You lost a lot of blood” Kylo’s eyes were dark with fear, he could sense Hux’s vital force slipping away with each passing moment. But he would not approach if Hux was to back away, he didn’t want him to feel cornered “I can help, I can heal you”.

Hux stood silent for a moment. He didn’t seem to have a choice, the blood flow was much thinner then it had been before but it still showed no signs of stopping. He knew is body was also not responding well to the lack of lyrium, it only made it more difficult for him to retain his strength and heal. But Hux knew he wasn’t going to die from it. He could meditate, control his blood flow, accelerate the natural process of repairing of the tissues. He had leaned how to do so during his lessons, he had a very acute knowledge of his body. He could choose not to let Kylo help him, choose to tell him to stay away. He was sure that Kylo would not go against his wishes. But the madness was that he wanted Kylo to draw nearer, he wanted to see him better, feel his touch, see how he would make his magic work on him. The though of letting a mage cast one of his spells on him left him deeply apprehensive. He couldn’t simply unlearn all the warnings he was given, but he wondered what would happen if he _tried_.

“This is yours” Kylo murmured, breaking the silence that filled him with dreadful questions which were filled by himself with dreadful answers. He slowly reached out his hand and touched the tip of the sword that laid on the dirt. He then nudged the weapon, making no sudden moves, so it slid through the uneven ground and ended up by Hux’s side “If you hold the blade against my neck, will you let me heal you?” he was visibly shuddering. Hux never had anyone care so much weather he lived or died to be in such a state. He also never saw anyone so damaged as to make such an absurd offer that could cost them their life.

Hux tilted his head up and down, signifying Kylo could come near him. The apostate seemed surprised, but quickly got up to his feet, then halted only to proceed towards Hux at a slower pace. He glanced at the sword, left untouched by Hux’s side, wondering if the templar was too weak to take it, wondering if he should stop where he was.

Kylo got on his knees right next to Hux, who didn’t flinch nor took his eyes out of Kylo’s. The apostate could see in detail the freckles that gave Hux’s face such heavenly grace, in his eyes there was the color of the sea when the dark green of seaweeds blended with the reflection of the blue of the sky. The templar could see every lock of Kylo’s long dark hair that had been cut irregularly, giving a wild shape to the curls went down to his shoulders. Kylo’s lips were chapped and colorless, Hux’s were soft and rosy, both men realized at the same time.

But the apostate was quickly back to his task, and as he rolled up the sleeves of his robes he eyed the sword once more, impatiently.

“It is okay, just hold it on my neck” he said, hands frozen on the air, waiting.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I need to heal you now” Kylo reached out his hand and held Hux’s, disregarding the exciting tingling on his skin, he directed the other man’s hands towards the grip of the sword. The templar didn’t grasp it “Hux, please”

“You can go ahead, but I won’t put a blade to your neck”

“Wh—”

“Kylo” Hux put both of his hands on Kylo’s cheeks, the apostate looked startled at first, but rapidly relaxed into the touch “I’m telling you, go ahead”

Kylo extended the fingers of his left hand and left them hovering over Hux’s wound, his right hand took one of the templar’s from his cheeks and held it tightly. He shut his eyes and concentrated, as unsettled by the fact that Hux was letting him do all that as Hux was unsettled by being cared for. The templar’s mind was silent now, but his heart kept whispering to him.

Hux found his face coming closer to the apostate’s, his eyes wandering towards Kylo’s lips as if they would always come back to them if they were lost and needed to find their way back home.

“Kylo” Hux whispered to get the apostate to open his eyes.

Their lips found each other. Through which had been fear, prejudice, fury and doubt, somehow, they found each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, comments are very much welcome as they help me a lot with motivation! Besides, I really wanna know what you guys are thinking of the story until now.  
> You can send me an ask on Tumblr as well: https://melkorstars.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> So, the story is written, the research is done, the 5 chapters are planned out but I am a sinner and I need motivation to keep writing this to the end. Comments really make my day and keep me inspired (even if they are criticizing the fic, I want to hear it and improve my writing! But please mind you that I am not aiming for a Nobel at the moment). So feel free to motivate me!


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